What’s The Best Way to Install Car Seats in Trucks?

For some reason when we talk about car seats, we usually talk about how they’re installed in the back seat of a car. The trouble is that most manufacturers also keep sedans and hatchback vehicles in mind while designing the car seats. Many of us drive heavy duty vehicles such as pickups and trucks that are intended to carry the load and not babies, which leads us to this question; can car seats be installed in trucks a well?

Fortunately for those of us who drive trucks, the answer is yes, they can. The basic gist of it is that where there’s a gear, you can fix a baby car seat over it. However, there are some things you want to be sure of before you try and fix a car seat over your truck’s front passenger seat. Here are a few useful pointers that you should keep in mind while trying to fix a car seat in your truck. If you haven’t bought one already, then you might want to keep these things in mind before you go looking since these will help you pick out the seat that works best for your truck.

Since these car seats are placed on top of the stock seats in your car, it is critical that they have a solid base to keep them supported. Most manufacturers would recommend that at least 80 percent of the car seat should be resting on your vehicle’s seat. If it’s going to hang over the edge of the seat anymore, there’s an increased risk of it toppling over or just not remaining in place. This defeats the very purpose of there being a car seat and is particularly dangerous in a crash – can’t have that.

Keep it Facing in The Right Direction

This may be pretty obvious, but front facing seats are not meant to face the opposite direction. This includes booster seats and convertible seats as well. These seats are designed to meet government regulations and are even crash tested to ensure safety with the seats facing the front; therefore, if you want to maximize the safety of your child, you’re going to want to make sure that the seat is facing the way it’s supposed to face. If you’re having trouble getting it to face right, then it simply isn’t the right seat for your truck.

Don’t Put Them in The Cargo Area

Okay, do we need to spell this one out for you? The cargo area is for transporting heavy objects and not people, let alone babies. Most trucks have at least one passenger seat in the front that should be good enough to host a car seat meant for children. If your truck doesn’t have that for some odd reason, then you probably should get that fixed or get a new truck; just don’t try to fix the baby car seat in the luggage area or boot – this is unsafe and probably illegal too.